A Little Touch of Fosse Works Its Way Onto the Stage

Members of Ballet Hispanico in Group Portrait of a Lady.Credit
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

According to Chita Rivera, Bob Fosse once fired a dancer because she couldn’t control the movements of her eyes; the man was nothing if not a minimalist. What, you wonder, would he have thought of “Ritmo y Ruido,” a 1997 work by Ann Reinking, a woman steeped in Fosse’s style? You can see his influence in the dance, which was performed by Ballet Hispanico at the Joyce Theater on Tuesday. But you can’t see any of his restraint.

Lines of dancers in Toni-Leslie James’s slinky black costumes race across the stage to Philip Hamilton and Tobias Ralph’s jazzy score, doing their best to look sexy while showing off their athletic prowess. Just when you think “Ritmo y Ruido” can’t get any more ridiculous, it leaps, toes pointed and lashes batting, to ever more glorious heights of absurdity. Things get even worse when Ms. Reinking slows things down for an interminable duet for Angelica Burgos and Eric Rivera that features her balanced on his tabled back, rotating her limbs as though swimming. These are murky waters indeed.

But they at least contain a few silly diversions. What is there to say about the other two dances that were new to this program, the second of Ballet Hispanico’s Joyce stint? Jean Emile’s moody, physical “Tres Bailes,” a premiere, and Vicente Nebrada’s decorous, romantic “Group Portrait of a Lady,” from 1983, come from different sensibilities. But they share an utter lack of consequence.

Under the reign of the founding artistic director, Tina Ramirez, who is retiring after almost 40 years at the helm, Ballet Hispanico has commissioned works from 50 choreographers. Yet the repertory is filled with dispiritingly similar dances. They are tastefully sultry, designed to show off the sleek performers and studded with various Latin dance touches and ballet’s flowing lines — and, in Ms. Reinking’s case, jazz hands.

Ms. Ramirez has been a strong advocate for Hispanic dancers. Let us hope her successor is a strong advocate for innovative choreography.